Wednesday, December 05, 2012

He's flexible

In his first television interview since his re-election, President Obama
pushed his proposal to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" but also
signaled that he is open to some movement on some key components of his
proposal, including raising taxes on the wealthy.

Are we surprised? I'm not. Nor that Caldwell also reports that Barack's saying he'll be 'flexible.'

Of course he'll be flexible. The entire point of this 'fiscal cliff' creation is to gut the safety net.

Following a dismal report last week on retail sales for November, the
first month of the holiday shopping season, manufacturing data released
Monday confirmed that the US economy is weakening.The Institute
for Supply Management (ISM) issued its purchasing managers’ index (PMI)
for November, showing an unexpected contraction in manufacturing to the
lowest level in three years (since July 2009). The index fell to 49.5
from 51.7 in October. Any number below 50 indicates a contraction of
factory output. Most analysts had predicted a figure well above 51.

There was no recovery. But enough foolishly believed there were long enough to give Barack a temporary boost for the elections.

Tuesday,
December 4, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, tensions continue
between Baghdad and Erbil with various officials flying back and forth,
but Baghdad won't let Turkey land in the KRG, Iraq tops a list (it's not
a list a country wants to top), Iraqiya and the Sadr bloc call out
attempts to censor the internet, and more.

Yesterday
evening there was a Bradley Manning Support Network's DC event or, as
it turned out, No Gold Star Left Behind. Everyone gets a prize just for
participating. Before we get to that, Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported
in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the
Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of
violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his
personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized
software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight
counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified
information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported
that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges
including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could
result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took
place in December. At the start of this year, there was an Article 32
hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be
moving forward with a court-martial. Bradley has yet to enter a plea
and has neither affirmed that he is the leaker nor denied it. The
court-martial was supposed to begin before the election but it was
postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run
on a record of his actual actions.

Some notes. I attended with a National Lawyers Guild friend. I'm sure we weren't the only ones rolling our eyes as various 'political prisoners' got name checked and Lynne Stewart
was ignored. We didn't attend expecting to hear Lynne's name but when
you've got time to name check others, you've got time for Lynne.
Lynne's always had time for everyone else and, yes, you owe Lynne
Stewart. You might also have included her on the 'great attorneys' of
the past list -- but, of course, no women made that list either.

There
was time to thank reporters, time to mention them by name, time to
applaud them, time to weigh in on Subway and working lunches. As that
speech was finally winding down, my friend pointed out, "Now we know why
they can't make a credible argument for Assange." Indeed. Does no one
organize before speaking to an audience? You're not there to tell the
history of time. You choose a few key points. You make those points,
you're done. It appears presentation has confused with filibuster.

At
last came David Coombs, Bradley Manning's attorney, and I wrongly
thought (yet again), "Okay, get ready to take notes." Wrong. Key
moment from the speech?

Probably when Coombs
was climbing the cross to praise himself -- the first time. Now
attorneys tend to have oversized egos, that's not surprising. But what
was surprising was hearing someone self-aggrandize to a packed room
about how great they were because they turn down all interview
requests. ("I also avoid any interviews with the media.") That's not
great at all.

You're in a media war, David
Coombs, you need to be taking every interview request and then some.
Your failure to do so goes a long, long way towards explaining how
Bradley has disappeared from the radar so often.

The
failure to grasp that this was a press event and not an ABA convention
further hurt Bradley. Going on about how the pre-trial motions blah
blah blah, Coombs suddenly declares, "I'm enjoying my opportunity to
cross-examine those who had Bradley Manning in those conditions for so
many months." And like dutiful idiots, many of those applauded that
crap.

Well, hey, then, let's let this trial go
on for 30 years. For those of us who are actually outraged that the US
government has refused to provide Bradley Manning with a fair and
speedy trial, the 'enjoyment' of the defense attorney really isn't our
concern.

Here's another tip: "Those people."
No one gives a damn about some free floating, nebulous menace. Even the
idiot Bully Boy Bush knew he had to paint a face on what he dubbed the
"axis of evil." But there was Coombs pontificating endlessly about
"those people" who knew Bradley was being wronged but did nothing, could
see with their own eyes that Bradley was being wronged but did
nothing. Who are these people? Do you mean guards? If so, why can't
you say that?

"Change"? Unless you're talking
coins, stop using that empty phrase -- especially as a noun. The 2008
election drained it of all value. At one point, Coombs wanted to liken
Bradley to Daniel Ellsberg. I'm sorry but I was at rallies for Daniel
Ellsberg -- actual rallies -- and this 'presentation' was more
self-congratulatory then anything we had for Ellsberg. Everything is
not an applause line and people need to stop applauding themselves.
It's not only immodest, it's counterproductive. A real discussion could
have taken place if everyone hadn't decided that self-suck was more
important than addressing reality. After three solid minutes of various
thanks (with no end in sight), my friend leaned over and asked if he
did "the E-Z checks plan, will they give me my PBS mug so we can leave
already?"

I've noted before that Jane Fonda
is one of our country's great speakers. She truly is. We can all
learn and borrow from her. One of the things she's always been very
good at is conveying some nervousness about speaking and growing
stronger in her presentation so that the subtext is: This made me
stronger. She embodies that. She does not stand there yammering on
about 'I'm scared but now I'm stronger and blah blah blah.' If Jane
were to put that into words instead of making it the subtext, it
wouldn't work. And Coombs' bad attempt to steal Jane's signature move
sank as he verbalized (in a hundred and one words) what she embodies
with a gesture, a head tilt and the growing passion in her voice.

David
Coombs loves the judge, loves the military system, loves the legal
system, loves to hear his own voice. We learned about that and so many
more things about David Coombs. Bradley? Not so much. What should
have been the strongest moment quickly sank.

David
Coombs: Last Tuesday, the President of the United States signed into
law The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. As President Obama
was signing this bill into law, Brad and I were in a court room for the
start of his unlawful pre-trial motion. How can you reconcile the two?

Is it possible for Coombs to speak
plainly? "Unlawful pre-trial motion." Is that a soundbyte outside of a
legal journal? I don't think so. Nor do I think "Brad and I were in a
court room" is appropriate. Bradley is the targeted one, not David
Coombs.

What followed were 'questions' that
were written out ahead of time on index cards. It was as though we were
sitting through the press conference Bully Boy Bush held right before
starting the Iraq War.

As we were leaving, a
reporter I knew stopped us and asked how fair were the questions? "Off
the record," I said, "the whole thing was bulls**t. Where do we get
off on the left refusing to take questions? Doing pre-screened --
excuse me, 'pre-approved' questions? I thought the heart of this case
was about the need for information to be out there. Freedom of
information died here, somebody call the time of death." My friend
summed it up better, however, "I support Manning 100% but what went on
in there was a cross between an Amway convention and a Nuremberg
Rally."

My comments above are on the first
half of the presentation only. (In part because I had to step outside
to return a few calls including one about last night's snapshot
-- it was too long when it was typed up and we had to edit it.) I was
present for the entire presentation and 'question' and answer session
with Coombs. I stepped out right after that.

It's going to catch that outbound plane but where will it land? Presumably not in northern Iraq. Kitabat reports
Taner Yildiz, Ministry of Energy for Turkey, was unable to land today
at the Erbil airport because the Civil Aviation Authority in Baghdad
would not grant permission. Al Jazeera notes
that he was to attend an energy conference in the KRG but instead "was
forced to land in Turkey's Kayseri, southeast of the capital Ankara."
And apparently this was not the only flight that Baghdad refused to
allow to land. Reuters quotes
Nasser Bandar (who is charge of the Civil Aviation Authority in
Baghdad) stating, "The UAE, Jordan and Turkey forwarded their demand to
get permission for private flights, and we refused the three requests as
they were not going along with Iraqi laws and regulations." Ivan Watson (CNN) quotes
an official with Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating, "We had
applied for flight permits. We were issued one, and the plane was on
the move. But in the meantime we were notified by the Iraqis that they
have banned all VIP flights to Northern Iraq."

Turkey
is importing oil from Iraq's Kurdistan region without Baghdad's
agreement and despite repeated statements from the Iraqi government
stressing that all oil contracts in the country, including in the
Kurdish region, must go through the central government. Ankara-Baghdad
relations turned sour last year after Ankara expressed support for
fugitive Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who faces terrorist
charges in his country and is sentenced to death, and gave him refuge. The two countries are also at odds over the Syrian unrest.

Hey,
remember when Nouri al-Maliki was wanted for terrorism in Iraq and he
escaped and hid out in Iran? Press TV never appears to. But that did
happen. Tareq al-Hashemi was not given a fair trial, witnesses were
tortured (including one potential witness who was tortured to death),
his defense wasn't allowed to call witnesses and there is never a fair
trial when judges hold a press conference to announce the accused is
guilty -- hold a press conference to make that announcement before the
trial even starts. That's not even getting into the Baghdad judge who,
at that press conference, declared that Tareq had tried to kill him.
This was not a fair trial, it was Nouri's kangaroo court. And though
Press TV and other outlets keep talking about al-Hashemi being in
Turkey, Arabic outlets had him going to Qatar over a week ago.

And it's this crisis that led to Iraq actually being raised in the State Dept's press briefing today presided over by State Dept spokesperson Mark Toner.

QUESTION: On Iraq?

MR. TONER: Yeah. Go ahead.

QUESTION:
What is your update on the U.S. mediation to defuse the military
tensions between the Iraqi Government and Kurdistan Regional Government
in North Iraq? Do you have anything new?

MR.
TONER: Well, I mean, I think I would just say at the outset this is
obviously an Iraqi process. We're doing what we can, obviously, to
encourage dialogue, and discussions are ongoing. I would refer you to
the Government of Iraq for any details, but ultimately improving
security in Iraq is in the interests of all parties in Iraq and will
benefit all Iraqis. So we want to see this dialogue continue and want to
see a resolution.

QUESTION: Okay. Mark, on this point --

MR. TONER: Yeah. Sure.

QUESTION:
-- a few weeks ago, there was a delegation, a delegation, that went and
met with the Ministry of Interior and Armed Forces in Iraq. Are you –
did anyone share with you the results of that meeting and --

MR. TONER: I don't, Said. I can take the question and see what came out of that --

QUESTION: Okay. Sure.

MR. TONER: -- specific meeting.

What
the above doesn't convey is that spokesperson Mark Toner read his
answer. He had a series of typed notes (on typing paper, stapled
together) and he flipped to the Iraq section and barely looked up as he
read, word for word, from his notes.

KUNA reports,
"Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi arrived here [Erbil] Tuesday
evening in yet another mission to break the stalemate between Iraq's
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraq's federal government over
Kirkuk region." This morning, Alsumaria reported al-Nujaifi stated the Baghdad versus Erbil crisis is now so large that there is the threat of military confrontation. Wael Grace (Al Mada) reports
several MPs spoke yesterday -- MPs of various political parties --
noting that Nouri was acting without any input or consultation of the
Parliament and its committees. While Najafi headed to Erbil, Al Mada reports that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani arrived in Baghdad for talks last night.

All Iraq News reports
Moqtada al-Sadr is calling out the remarks Nouri al-Maliki made on
Saturday, noting that Nouri's threats were a dangerous error and should
not happen again. Kitabat notes
that Moqtada called out the Russian arms deal as well as stating that
any weapons Iraq purchased should be for the defense of the country, not
to oppress Iraqis. Alsumaria notes he called on corruption to be investigated.

Dar Addustour reports
that it is said Nouri al-Maliki has been getting legal opinions on
state-of-emergency and is planning (toying with?) declaring a state of
emergency, ordering the arrests of various political rivals and
demonstrating to everyone what happens when the US governments installs
and backs tyrants. Second, the air space. Nouri whines that he can't
control the air space when it comes to Iranian flights to Syria and yet Kitabat reports
Taner Yildiz, Ministry of Energy for Turkey, was unable to land today
at the Erbil airport because the Civil Aviation Authority in Baghdad
would not grant permission.

How scared is Nouri's State of Law of the Iraqi people? Alsumaria reports
that yet another flunky with State of Law has made idiotic comments.
Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi should be silent, insists State of Law. He
has no right to speak. Check the Iraqi Constitution and you'll find
Allawi, like every other Iraqi, has the right to speak whenever he
wants. More importantly, he should be speaking right now. He is the
popular leader of Iraq. State of Law came in second to Iraqiya. If the
Constitution had been followed, Allawi or someone else from Iraqiya
would be prime minister right now. But Barack wanted the Bush-installed
Nouri to have a second term.

Washington has little political and no military influence
over these developments [in Iraq]. As Michael Gordon and Bernard
Trainor charge in their ambitious new history of the Iraq war, The Endgame,
Obama's administration sacrificed political influence by failing in
2010 to insist that the results of Iraq's first proper election be
honored: "When the Obama administration acquiesced in the questionable
judicial opinion that prevented Ayad Allawi's bloc, after it had won the
most seats in 2010, from the first attempt at forming a new government,
it undermined the prospects, however slim, for a compromise that might
have led to a genuinely inclusive and cross-sectarian government."

Surveying the events of late, Tim Arango and Duraid Adnan (New York Times) observe
that "[. . .] Iraq finds itself in a familiar position: full-blown
crisis mode, this time with two standing armies, one loyal to the
central government in Baghdad and the other commanded by the Kurdish
regional government in the north, staring at each other through gun
sights, as officials in Baghdad, including American diplomats and an
American general, try to mediate."

It's
Barack Obama's Iraq, it's Nouri al-Maliki's Iraq. And how proud they
must both be today as Iraq beat out 157 other countries to be declared
number one.

Before Nouri preens for the cameras, we should point out that the list topped is the Global Terrorism Index. Iraq
had 1228 incidents between 2002 and 2011 that were classified as
terrorism and this lead to 1798 deahts and to 4905 more people being
injured. This allowed Iraq to remain number one. Of the index, The Economist notes,
"It [Iraq] has suffered from the most attacks, including 11 of the
world's worst 20. Indeed, Iraqis comprised one third of deaths from
terrorism between 2002 and 2011."

Nouri's Iraq is also an Iraq where people struggle for the basics. This includes food. Yesterday the United Nations made a brief announcement.
It was spin, pure and simple, opening with the assertion that the last
five years had seen a decrease -- 250,000 less Iraqis facing food
insecurity. That sounds so much better than noting 1.9 million Iraqis
continue to face food insecurity (the 2007 number was 2.2 million). The
UN did acknowledge, "The report points to the Public Distribution
System (PDS) as an important element that has helped to ensure food
security and decent living standards for the poorest of households."
That's the food-ration card system. If you take that away, you don't
just add the 250,000 back into the total, you add a great deal more.
The food-ration card system is the only thing keeping many Iraqis
afloat. You may remember Nouri tried to end it. The people and
Parliament fought him on that and they won.

Al Mada reports
a fight went down in Parliament yesterday as well. Iraqiya and the
Kurdistan Alliance walked out of the session to protest an aspect of
the proposed Information and Telecommunications Law. They say it goes
to far and curbs basic freedoms and that a red line must be drawn, a
line you do not cross, that ensures internet freedom. Nothing, the
politicians argued, not even the threat of porn, is enough to restrict
the freedoms. Article 12 of the proposed law would allow the government
to control access and content. They are demanding that Article 12 be
striken from the bill.

Saturday, Nouri
threatened to arrest members of Parliament who spoke publicly about the
abuse Iraqi women are suffering in prisons. The BRussels Tribunal has a very important article on this torture.
We're going to highlight a little from their report each snapshot this
week and hopefully include the entire thing that way. Yesterday, we
noted the arrest. Here's the next step.

This
is the second stage of the unfair arrest journey. The female detainee
will be sent either to Shaab Stadium Prison or the notorious Al-Muthanna
Airport Prison. A group of the worst psychopaths in the government is
supervising these prisons, a corrupt committee of criminals of the
Military Intelligence, the Intelligence services of the Ministry of
Interior, and an Intelligence and Security Representative from the Chief
Commander's Office. This management is appointed by the Iraqi
Correction Office through the Ministry of Justice. 45% of its employees
are Al-Mahdi Militia members, 30% from the Badr Organisation. The other
25% is divided among the other criminal parties of the government.

This
phase is considered as the most barbaric. The security forces, prison
guards and members of the prison management practice the most terrible
ways of torture, humiliation, profanation, deprivation, blackmailing the
prisoners, ethnic and sectarian and political discrimination, and
raping men and women without exception. Female prisoners are detained
for very long periods, without legitimate accusations or investigating
their case. In criminal Maliki's jails, there are many women who were
imprisoned for periods between one year and six years, without any legal
representation or procedures regarding their case.

There
are many examples of the immoral and brutal practices being committed
against female and male prisoners in Al-Tasfeerat Prisons. Some officers
from the Ministries of Interior and Defense, the Office of the Chief of
Command, and some partisan and criminal militia leaders visit these
prisons, and choose some detainees to be tortured for hours and raping
them for sectarian reasons. Some of the prisoners die as a result of
this brutal torture. Between 2008-2012 Al-Rasafah Tasfeerat Prison
recorded the death of more than 250 prisoners, among them 17 women.
During the same period Al-Muthanna Airport Prison recorded the death of
125 prisoners, among them three women.

And
these torture practices do not only take place in Al-Tasfeerat Prisons,
but in all the prisons supervised by the Ministry of Justice, especially
the Juveniles Prison, Al-Kadimiyah Women Prison, the notorious
Abu-Ghraib Prison, in addition to the secret prisons of Al-Maliki where
no accurate records are available about the male and female detainees
who died because of the brutal torture they faced there.

It's
worth mentioning that under Al Maliki's rule, some notorious high risk
level prisoners - men and women alike- were released or secretly
smuggled out Al-Tasfeerat Prisons, after destroying all the documents
and papers related to their cases, on the orders of Ministers and VIPs
in the Ministries of Interior and Defense, and the Commanding Chief's
Office. Here are some of prisoners who were "released":

Radiyah
Kadum Muhsin : she was one of the prominent leaders of the Dawa Party,
and was released after an order from Al-Maliki himself, and under the
supervision of his Intelligence and Security Consultant. She was accused
of leading one of the biggest human trafficking criminal gangs that
kidnap children and sell them, in addition to prostitution, seducing
some officers and government officials, and blackmailing them with their
own pornographic photos, or even eliminating them. She was also accused
of drug dealing, and forging official documents.

Adnan
Abdulzahra Al-Aaraji: he is one of the prominent leaders of the Mahdi
Militia, and the head of one of the most notorious gangs known in Iraqi
history in terms of sadism, criminality and discrimination. He was
arrested by the Americans while he was trying to smuggle 5000 corpses of
his victims to Iran during the sectarian wars in 2006. Those corpses
were sent to Iran in three cooled vehicles for the sake of human organs
trade. He was accused of smuggling antiques, explosives, weapons, and
drugs. We mentioned here only two of the prisoners who were "released"
from Al-Maliki prisons.

October 9th,
with much fanfare, Nouri signed a $4.2 billion dollar weapons deal with
Russia. After taking his bows on the world stage and with Parliament
and others raising objections, Nouri quickly announced the deal was
off. It's not going away.

And it's made Nouri a joke on the
international stage -- which hurts investment in Iraq. Nouri signed a
deal and then trashed it. Was it corrupt? Maybe so. If so, he should
have known before he signed it. Among all the leaders of countries in
the world, Nouri now looks like the most rank amateur. He brings that
shame on Iraq. And he does so after six years in office.

Mohammad Sabah (Al Mada) reports
Parliament's Integrticy Committee began their questioning Sunday of the
officials who went to Russia with Nouri -- including the 'acting'
Minister of Defense. Yeah, Nouri should have had a Minister of Defense
looking over that deal. But, oops, despite Constitutional requirements,
Nouri never nominated anyone for that post. As part of a power-grab,
he wanted to leave it open. As Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) observed
in July, "Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has struggled to forge a
lasting power-sharing agreement and has yet to fill key Cabinet
positions, including the ministers of defense, interior and national
security, while his backers have also shown signs of wobbling support."
Rumors swirl in Iraq right now that Nouri's former spokesperson Ali
al-Dabbagh (who is reported to have fled the country) has passed on
papers to the Committee -- documenting the corruption. State of Law's Izzat Shabandar was scheduled to testify today. All Iraq News notes
that a statement from the Sadr bloc notes that Shabandar did testify
today and that his remarks matched information that the
Integrity Committee had previously unearthed in their corruption
investigation. Ayad al-Tamimi (Al Mada) reports the Sadr bloc declared yesterday that the deal wasn't worth half its stated value.

In
an NPR interview on Dec. 20, 2002, Rice joined the bellicose chorus,
declaring: "It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It's clear that
its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and
that's the path we're on. I think the question becomes whether we can
keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move
forward, as we must, on the military side."

Rice
also was wowed by Secretary of State Colin Powell's deceptive speech to
the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003. The next day, again on NPR, Rice
said, "I think he has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding
them, and I don't think many informed people doubted that."

After the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, Rice foresaw an open-ended U.S. occupation of Iraq. In a Washington Post online forum,
she declared, "To maximize our likelihood of success, the US is going
to have to remain committed to and focused on reconstruction and
rehabilitation of Iraq for many years to come. This administration and
future ones will need to demonstrate a longer attention span than we
have in Afghanistan, and we will have to embrace rather than evade the
essential tasks of peacekeeping and nation building."

Only
later, when the Iraq War began going badly and especially after she
became an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, did Rice
take a less hawkish position. She opposed President Bush's troop
"surge" in 2007, a stance in line with Obama's anti-Iraq War posture.
During Campaign 2008, she also mocked one of Sen. John McCain's trips to
the Baghdad as "strolling around the market in a flak jacket."